Meeting of the Parliament 09 December 2025
I congratulate Sue Webber on bringing the debate to the chamber, because the issue is—as we have just heard—a real menace throughout the country. In Aberdeen, Union Street is already suffering as a result of swingeing business rates; the damage to our oil and gas industry caused by the Scottish Government and the UK Government; short-sighted and damaging council policies such as a low-emission zone and bus gates; and the chronic underfunding and underresourcing of the police, which led to their piloting of a non-investigation of crimes approach.
We can throw into that mix e-bikes and e-scooters. People have become ever more reluctant to venture forth, as users of the bikes—clad in black with their faces covered, generally without lights and often in groups—are racing up the pavements, hurling anything from abuse to consumables. As e-bikes are often used on roads illegally, they are frequently linked with antisocial behaviour, the intimidation of communities and danger to other road users and pedestrians.
As Sue Webber said, we also know that e-bikes are being used to deal drugs. She is right that the underfunding and underresourcing of the police makes it challenging for them to deal with the issue, but the north-east police do what they can. They run a community action team, which investigates issues such as e-bikes and the antisocial behaviour that is associated with them. The police have seen many positive results and have managed to seize e-bikes and charge individuals. They have experienced officers who know much about this menace. There are specialist road policing officers who carry out vehicle examinations and regular patrols to examine and combat the issue. Nonetheless, our police feel constrained, because chasing a rider in a vehicle pursuit could result in serious injury or worse to the rider, to the police or to the public.
Using other methods such as DNA tagging spray to tag illegal e-bikes and their riders often allows for seizures and cross-referencing with other crimes. Police are also dependent on public-reported sightings to help them figure out who is using such vehicles and where they are being stored. Often, police are able to overlap that information with CCTV footage from across the city. However, that is the operational aspect. If we, in this place, do not act to support the police and communities properly, we also own the consequences.
In my justice policy paper “Cracking Down on Crime”, which was released last month, Scottish Conservatives set out a number of initiatives that we would bring in if we were to form the next Government. We must back the police not only with proper funding and resources, but with the tools that they say that they need to tackle dangerous behaviour, such as enabling them to restore visible policing across Scotland, especially on our high streets.
We must take a zero-tolerance approach to antisocial behaviour, including the misuse of e-bikes, with tougher penalties for reckless e-bike and e-scooter use, intimidating clothing and the harassment of pedestrians.